


Our Light

by Anonymous



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: ALTERNATE UNIVERSE :DDD, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst and Feels, Don't Like Don't Read, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, GLACIERRR, Gay Cole (Ninjago), I! NEED! MORE! GLACIER!!, M/M, NSFW!!, TRANS ZANE TRANS ZANE TRANS ZANE, Trans!Zane, Why Did I Write This?, gonna be a long one, no beta we die like zane, smut ;), so i wrote it myself :)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27672347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: They've known each other for almost half their lives.They've seen each other smiling, confident, blissfully happy.They've seen each other broken, wounded, lost.But Zane has never seen Cole like this.Cole taught him to look for beauty. In darkness, in destruction, Cole has always found light.Zane doesn't know what beauty he will find here, what light. But he'll try. He'll do it for Cole. Because he knew that Cole would do it for him.There was so much beauty in their lives together.Maybe that's where they should start.
Relationships: Cole/Zane (Ninjago)
Kudos: 26
Collections: Anonymous





	Our Light

**ZANE'S POV**

Sometimes objects seem like they're witnessed history.

I used to imagine that the wooden table I sat around during Ms Chang's Shakespeare lesson in our senior year was as old as the land of Ninjago - that it had been in that room since the beginning of time, edges worn smooth by centuries of students, which of course couldn't be true. 

It's funny, if someone asked me who else was with Cole and I that day. I don't think I could tell them. I used to be able to see all their faces so clearly, but many years later I remember only Cole and Ms Chang. I can't even recall the name of the student who came, running late, into the classroom. Later, even, than Cole.

Chang had just finished calling roll when Cole pushed open the door. He smiled at me, his dimple making a brief appearance as he stuck his phone in his back pocket. His eyes landed quickly on the empty seat next to mine, and he sat down.

"And you are?" Chang asked, as he reached into his backpack for a notebook and pen. 

"Cole," he said. "Cole Brookstone". 

Chang checked the paper in front of her. "Let's aim for 'on time' for the rest of the semester, Mr Brookstone. Class starts at nine."

He nodded, and Chang started talking about themes in _Julius Caesar._

"We are at the height ready to decline", she read. "There is a tide in the affairs of men / Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; / Omitted, all the voyage of their life / Is bound in shallows and in miseries. / On such a full sea are we now afloat, / And we must take the current when it serves, / Or lose our ventures." 

"I trust you all did the reading. Who can tell me what Brutus is saying about fate and free will here?"

I will always remember that passage because I have wondered so many times since that day whether Cole and I were fated to meet in Chang's Shakespeare lesson. Whether it was destiny or decision that has kept us connected all these years. Or a combination of both, taking the current when it serves.

After Chang spoke, a few people flipped through the textbook in front of them. Cole ran his fingers through his shaggy black hair.

"Well," he spoke, and the rest of the class joined me in looking at him. 

But he never got to finish.

The student whose name I cannot remember came racing into the room. "Sorry I'm late," she said. "Garmadon just bombed one of the towers in Jamanakai. It came on TV just as I was leaving for class.

No one knew the significance of her words; not even she did.

We all shrugged it off and Chang kept talking about _Caesar._ As I took notes, I watched the fingers of Cole's right hand unconsciously rub against the wood grain of the table. I spent the rest of the class thinking of him.

* * *

Cole and I started down the stairs together. Not exactly together, but next to each other. The air was clear, the sky was blue - and everything had changed. We just didn't know it yet. 

People all around us were talking over one another:

"The tower collapsed!"

"School's cancelled!"

I turned to Cole. "What is going on?"

"I live in East Campus," he said, pointing toward the dorm. "Let's go find out. You're Zane, right? Where do you live?"

"Coincidentally, I live in East Campus too." I said. "And yes, Zane". 

"Nice to meet you, Zane. I'm Cole." He held out his hand. Amid everything, I shook it, and looked up at him as I did. His dimple came back. His eyes shone an emerald green. I thought for the first time: _He's beautiful_. 

We went to our suite and met our roommates, then watched TV. Jay Walker and Lloyd Garmadon. Jay had red-brown hair, brown eyes, a few freckles dotting his round cheeks. He loved to talk, chatting excitedly when we walked into the room. Lloyd had shaggy blond hair, and it turned out he was the son of Garmadon, but his parents divorced when his mother found out her husband's true intentions. He was nice though, but got bullied for his dad a lot.

On the television screen, flames surrounded the building, blackened mounds of rubble sent smoke into the sky, and the tower fell. The devastation numbed us. We stared at the images, unable to reconcile the stories with our reality. The fact that this was happening in our city, twenty miles from where we sat, hadn't set in yet. At least not for me. It felt so far away.

I felt sick. How could Garmadon do this? I excused myself, and headed to my bed, before Cole stopped me. "You okay?" he asked. 

"I'm fine, I just can't believe a human being could do such a thing", I said. 

"We'll be fine, Zane. The school won't let anything happen to us. They'll protect you." he paused. " _I'll_ protect you." He ran his fingers absently along my platinum blond hair. "Do you want to go with me to the roof of the dorm?"

It was an intimate gesture, the kind of thing that happens after all barriers of personal space have been breached. And all of a sudden, I felt connected to him.

But then, right after he touched my hair he realized what he has done, and let his hand drop to his side. He smiled at me again, but this time it did not go to his eyes.

I shrugged. "Okay," I said.

The world felt like it was cracking in pieces, like we had gone through a shattered mirror into the fractured place inside, where nothing made sense, where our shields were down, our walls broken. In that place, there wasn't any reason to say no.

* * *

We took the elevator up to the dorm, and then he pulled open a window at the end of the hallway. "Someone showed me this in my second year here", he said. "It's the most incredible view of Ninjago City you'll ever see."

We climbed out of the window, onto the roof, and I gasped. Smoke billowed up from the southern tip of Ninjago. The whole sky was turning gray, the city shrouded in ash. 

"It can't be," I said. Tears filled my eyes. I pictured what used to be there, saw the space where the towers had stood. It finally hit me. "There were people in those buildings".

Cole's hand found mine and held it. 

We stood there, staring at the aftermath of destruction, for how long I don't know. 

"What happens now?" I finally whispered. Seeing it made me understand the magnitude of the attack. "What is next?"

He looked at me, and our eyes locked with the kind of magnetism that ignore the world around it. His hand slid to my waist, and I hesitated. I didn't deserve him. When he finds out that I was trans, it would be all over. Nonetheless, I rose up onto my toes to meet his lips halfway. We pressed our bodies together, as if that would protect us from whatever came after. The moment his body enveloped mine, that's how I felt - safe, enfolded in the strength and warmth of his arms. And I forgot the world. In that moment, there was only him. 

When we broke for breath, I leaned my head against his chest, listening to his heart and was comforted by its ready beating.

Did my heartbeat comfort him? Does it still?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


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